Dumpling Sister's Thoughts
11.4.2006 Getting Sick (Chinese Version)
In the middle of the night, I couldn't sleep, so I had to get up to write. I guessed this was either because of the delayed response from the flu shot or the change in the weather, so I got sick. This morning when I woke up, one side of my tonsil was swollen, later after a half day, both were swollen. This made swallowing much difficult. Friends from MSN of different time zones all suggested more water consumption, ok, fine, I could do that, but it just hurt when swallowing in.
I tried to take my temperature with my thermometer, guess what, it changed from minute to minute. I could be 98.9 right now but 99.8 the next minute. Then when I tried to repeat the test, well, I was to find that I was still very healthy. This was like the stock price I was seeing, how interesting that my temperature was reporting like the stock prices.
Actually over the course of many years, I have always paid attention to my health. I didn't usually get sick while others might. I was proud to say that I usually didn't get sick for a few years in the roll.
But in actuality, I used to like getting sick. I could even say I wanted to get sick. It just so happened that when I was younger, I got sick often. It was my happy days. I couldn't recall any discomfort I had when I got sick. If there was any discomfort to be named, it would be the time when i fell from a tree, but that was a human error, not an illness.
In my memory I have always remembered the hot steamed ginger duck soup.
Does that sound strange?
That was what my grandma would cook up for me each time I got sick. The ginger was put in to drive away the chill, with dates that were used to sweetened the soup, the taste of the soup was beyond words. In addition, the cough syrup to be taken was also something I liked. I could crave more and take more. How about homework? Well, since someone got sick, it would only be reasonable for this someone not being able to complete the assignments, well, there was someone else to help, Grandma.
As a result, my grandma, who had never really written any characters, had to write the assignments for me. With her poor eye sight this was not easy, yet I remembered she was always very concentrated and careful. Yet I would be on the side telling her not to write so neatly. It would be too obvious.
Well, my grandma never listened to my humble suggestions, yet I have always turned in the homework she wrote.
Maybe she remembered the times when she was younger, how she was not given the chance to study in the school? It started to occur to me in the middle of the quiet night.
As years went by, the duck feeding ceased. The ginger soup was part of the memory, and I started to lose my enthusiasm with getting sick.
It was just that, when I turned I could see that bowl of duck soup topped with grease rings. It seemed that the time with the simple living started to approach me. It was the years when I would hold my nose to take the medicine powder.